Valley Manor Care Center

While this facility's overall grade is not a highlight, it received a somewhat respectable score in the category of inspections. We awarded it a B- for this area, which is a decent score. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in calculating these inspection ratings. One key factor is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of deficiencies is usually more important than the quantity of deficiencies, as some end up being relatively insignificant. This place received 2 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none were considered to be major deficiencies. This means that the inspectors did not deem any of these deficiencies to pose an immediate risk to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility was cited by CMS for possible abuse or neglect. We would not recommend this facility under any circumstance.

One of the other reasons we rated this nursing home so highly is that it received a very impressive nursing score. Nursing proved to be its second best category grade. In that category, we gave this facility an B-. Our nursing score assesses several components, many of which are associated with levels of nurse staffing. This nursing home averages just 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low figure. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this facility actually excelled in some of the quality measures we assessed. It scored well when it comes to avoiding pressure ulcers and major falls. Many consider these areas to be reliable measures of the quality of nursing care. In some cases, the quality of nursing care is as important as the number of hours of care offered.

The next best category we gave this nursing home in any area came in the category of short-term care, where we awarded it a B-. In computing our short-term care scores, we look at the facility's levels of skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists occupational therapists and other highly trained professionals. This category is more often than not a reliable assessment of a nursing home's rehabilitation services. Unfortunately, we found that this place provided fewer registered nurse and physical therapist hours per resident than most other nursing homes. The tricky part is determining what bearing this had on quality of care. Finally, we looked at the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 4.8 percent of this facility's patients returned home. At most nursing homes, closer to half of their patients are able to return home so this figure is below average.

Our last area is long-term care, in which we awarded this facility a B- in that area. For long-term care residents, the nursing home's primary goal is to keep patients healthy and safe. This is different than skilled nursing or short-term care where the goal is to rehabilitate patients. Once we assessed the volume of care provided by nurses, we then looked at the nursing home's vaccination statistics. We were pleased to discover that this facility vaccinated 98.53658 percent of its residents against pneumonia. This facility keeps its residents out of the hospital. It had only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.